Top Ten "Anti-Christian Attacks" of 2009

Gary Cass’s Christian Anti-Defamation Commission (CADC) lists the top ten attacks on Christians in 2009. Surprise, surprise . . . most have nothing to do with physical attacks or any infringement upon civil rights, but rather defeats in the Christian Agenda.

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission purports to exist:

to advance religious liberty for Christians by protecting Christians from defamation, discrimination, and bigotry from any and all sources by means of education and selected legal services including litigation, inside the United States and internationally.

Well, that sounds quite reasonable. I’m all in favor of protecting people from defamation (that is, libel or slander, not sharing of truth), discrimination (being treated differently due to a classification rather than merit), and bigotry (being treated with hatred or intolerance for belonging to a particular classification). I’m sure all ten of the Top Ten Anti-Christian Attacks of 2009 (as the release is re-titled by Christian Newswire) evidence defamation, discrimination, or bigotry. The lead-in to the article on the CADC website sure makes it seem that way:

CADC has just released our list of the top ten incidents of anti-Christian defamation, bigotry and discrimination in the US from last year. The list was selected by you, our readers, by narrowing down the top ten from a list of twenty of CADC’s top stories from 2009.

It is arguable that anti-Christian hatred has spilled over into material forms of persecution in 2009. Christians were killed and bullied for their witness, ministers and churches threatened with violence and vandalized for standing for marriage, and Christians were fired for not compromising their faith. If these are not bona fide examples of persecution, than I wonder what more it might take?

Let’s review!

10. Pro-life Pastor Reverend Walter Hoye of Oakland, CA was jailed for exercising peaceful, pro-life speech.

Well, not entirely accurate. Hoye violated an Oakland law requiring protestors to stay at least eight feet from anyone entering an abortion clinic, and was arrested. The judge sentenced him not to jail but to three years’ probation and restitution of $1,000, plus 30 days either in jail or in an alternative program such as a sheriff’s work detail.

Hoye could have disposed of the jail time in a sheriff’s work detail or by volunteering. But he balked at the judge’s order to stay 100 yards from Family Planning Specialists Medical Group at Second and Webster streets. Hoye argued that the order was more severe than Oakland’s ordinance and stifled his First Amendment rights.

Hing refused to budge at a hearing Friday at which Hoye’s attorneys tried to stay the sentence pending an appeal. The judge asked Hoye to decide whether he wished to serve a month in jail or in an alternative program, and the pastor chose jail.

#10 is falsely exaggerated. Hoye was arrested for violating a law which he knew about . . . and not an unreasonable one. Requiring protestors to stay eight feet from patients entering a clinic is hardly oppressive; rather, it prevents physical intimidation of patients.

Hoye seems to think his right to free harassment trumps a clinic patient’s right to privacy. Guess he was wrong.

9. Rev. Fred Winters was murdered while preaching in his pulpit in Maryville, Illinois.

Fred Winters was indeed murdered while preaching. However, did his religion have anything to do with it? Probably not:

The newspaper reported late Sunday a source close to the case confirmed the gunman as Terry Joe Sedlacek, 27, who developed mental illness after Lyme disease attacked his brain.

…

The Rev. Mark Jones, another pastor at First Baptist, said he did not recognize the gunman, who Jones saw briefly before he pulled his weapon . . . “We have no idea what this guy’s motives were. We don’t know if we’ll ever know that.”

#9, a shooting by a mentally ill individual with no apparent motive. Are we grasping at straws here, CADC?

A terrible act against a Christian, to be sure. But an “anti-Christian act”, when the mentally-ill attacker can offer no motive? Hardly.

8. HBO’s program “Curb Your Enthusiasm” aired an episode where the main actor urinates on painting of Jesus. When confronted HBO would not apologize.

In what was meant to be humor, comic Larry David filmed a scene in which he “shook off” onto a painting of Jesus next to the toilet. A woman then believes that the painting is crying. Much lowbrow hilarity ensues.

During Sunday’s episode, David, who created, wrote and produced “Seinfeld,” visits a bathroom in his assistant’s home and splatters urine on a picture of Jesus. Instead of wiping it off, David leaves the restroom. Minutes later, David’s assistant enters the bathroom and concludes that Jesus is crying. She then summons her mother to the bathroom, where both women kneel in prayer.

This makes it to #8 of the worst anti-Christian acts of 2009. In the whole world. A Jewish comic spritzing a painting of Jesus and not wiping it off.

Truly, American Christians are an oppressed 78% majority.

7. The overt homosexual participation in Obama’s presidential inaugural events by “Bishop” Vickie Eugene Robinson, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington D. C., and a homosexual marching band.

Um . . . how exactly is this an “anti-Christian attack”? Well, Gary Cass at CADC has been whining since January about the fact that homosexuals were allowed at the Inaugural instead of the Internment Camp.

Said Cass,

Barack Obama’s inauguration will have the dubious distinction of being the most perverted in our nation’s history . . . if you thought that leaving Judeo-Christian values out of the prayer wasn’t statement enough to Christians — for your entertainment pleasure, Robinson will be appearing with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington D. C. which forces all Christians around the world to compromise their character if they want to watch the inauguration . . . a homosexual marching band with their rainbow flags flying proud with millions of our nation’s children and Christians watching.

Celebrating a person’s sin sends a message of approval.

How is permitting homosexuals — many of whom identify as Christian, like Robinson, an Episcopalian — to participate in the Inauguration an attack on Christianity?

6. Police called to East Jessamine Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky to stop 8th graders from praying during their lunch break for a student whose mother was tragically killed.

A true statement, apparently . . . though I can find no actual news source reporting the story.

From Beliefnet:

the mother of a student who attends the school was killed in a tragic accident. Many students gathered at school the next day between classes to pray for the family. Some teachers told the students to stop praying immediately.

At lunchtime, students gathered to pray again. Someone from the school called the police and officers arrived at the school to investigate. Some students who prayed between classes and during lunch were called to the principal’s office and told that prayer was not allowed at the school.

After many students and parents complained, and the local news media began to investigate what had happened, the school decided the next day to allow the students to pray. Some teachers stated that the students should not have been allowed to pray on campus, however, and it is unclear whether student-led, student-initiated prayer will be permitted in the future.

We have sent a demand letter to the school – spelling out the law and explaining that preventing students from praying was a gross overreaction and a violation of the First Amendment. We cited numerous Supreme Court cases and United States Department of Education guidelines that protect the right of students to pray and discuss religious topics on campus on the same terms that other students may discuss non-religious subjects.

The author of the above, Jay Sekulow, is Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, and engages in an ongoing debate in the linked blog with Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

Strangely, I couldn’t find any reference to the case on ACLJ’s website. If you have better luck, please post the link in the comments!

Summary of this one: Someone overreacted, issue was resolved by the next day, no punishments and a lesson of religious tolerance for an oversensitive school board.

5. Pro-life activist Jim Pullion was murdered in front of his granddaughter’s high school for showing the truth about abortion.

This was a bit of a challenge to track down, not least because CADC’s article misspells the victim’s name.

James Pouillon was indeed shot as he stood outside of Owosso High School in Owosso, Michigan. He was one of three intended victims of shooter Harlan James Drake.

The second victim, Michael Fuoss, owned a gravel pit company in town. No motive was identified for Fuoss’s murder.

The third victim was unavailable for shooting while Drake was on his spree and similarly unavailable for comment afterward. Real estate agent Jim Howe left town.

A timeline of the shootings may be found here.

The Flint Journal reports that this was the #3 story of 2009 for their paper, and adds some interesting insights into both Mr. Drake’s and Mr. Pouillon’s activities:

The killings attracted international attention because Pouillon was protesting abortion in front of Owosso High School when he was shot, though Drake’s attorney and family said the killings were not politicially-motivated.

President Barack Obama and pro-life groups throughout the country spoke out on the slaying of Pouillon, and hundreds attended memorial services for the man. He was called a martyr for the cause, and dozens of protesters planned events in front of schools nationwide in Pouillon’s memory.

He was also named 2009’s person of the year by Operation Rescue, a national anti-abortion group.

However, one of Pouillon’s sons spoke out against the attention his father received, saying Pouillon is not a martyr but someone who “didn’t care about abortion” who wanted to upset and hurt women.

Drake is undergoing psychological testing, and his lawyers filed a notice of insanity defense in October.

Another nut case. This one apparently didn’t like the graphic images of aborted fetuses Pouillon liked to hold up outside the high school. Because Pouillon was Christian? Nope.

Sorry, a horrible act against someone who called himself Christian (though he could well have been a Jewish or Muslim anti-abortion activist), but not an “anti-Christian act” in my book.

4. An activist judge ordered a home school mom in New Hampshire to stop home schooling her daughter because the little girl “reflected too strongly” her mother’s Christian faith.

I was easily able to find the case in question, but even Fox News’s coverage left me missing the quoted words above, and also led me to a different conclusion. What do you think?

The girl’s parents, Brenda Voydatch and Martin Kurowski, divorced shortly after her birth in 1999. According to court documents, Kurowski wants his daughter to attend public schools because he believes home-schooling deprives her of socialization skills. A guardian ad litem, essentially a fact finder for the court, agreed, and that recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda Sadler.

“[E]ducation is by its nature an exploration and examination of new things,” the court order read. “[A] child requires academic, social, cultural, and physical interaction with a variety of experiences, people, concepts, and surroundings in order to grow to an adult who can make intelligent decisions about how to achieve a productive and satisfying life.”

But Simmons says the court has effectively taken away Voydatch’s right, as the girl’s primary-custody parent, to make decisions regarding her future, despite the fact that she enrolled the girl in three public school courses to assuage concerns of her former husband.

“It is not the proper role of the court to insist that [the girl] be ‘exposed to different points of view’ if the primary residential parent has determined that it is in Amanda’s best interest not to be exposed to secular influences that would undermine [the girl's] faith, schooling, social development, etc.,” Simmons wrote in court documents.

He says the court erred by agreeing with the guardian ad litem’s assessment that the girl was found to “lack some youthful characteristics,” in part because she “appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on question of faith,” according to court documents.

“The line that the court crossed here is saying that you’re too sincere in your religious beliefs,” Simmons said. “That’s the concern here.”

Note again that the statements assessing the girl were from the guardian ad litem, not the judge in the case. “The court” did not make that judgment, the social worker did.

But Kurowski’s attorney, Elizabeth Donovan, said the ruling was based on the girl’s isolated learning environment, and not on her mother’s religion. She said the girl’s home-schooling consists of “sitting in the corner of her mother’s bedroom,” where she receives her lessons on a computer screen.

“My client is concerned because of the isolation that is borne of that and the lack of exposure to the broader culture at large,” Donovan said. “People of different heritage, people of different culture, tolerance, group problem-solving, making friends, losing friends — all of the things that come with a public school education.”

Donovan said Kurkowski has previously taken the girl to church and has no objections to her exposure to religion.

“When two parents with joint decision-making responsibility disagree and they cannot come to any common ground, we submit it to the court,” she said. “The court takes all the testimony and the court renders a decision. Mrs. Voydatch didn’t like the decision.”

CADC actively promotes home-schooling to avoid the “worldly” influence of exposure to people with different points of view. While this case was mildly damaging to the home-school movement, it’s clearly about custody, not Christianity.

3. The Federal Department of Homeland Security issued a report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate” that labeled conservative Christians extremists and potential terrorists.

False. The full report is available HERE. Read it for yourself. It’s only 10 pages, and that includes the cover page AND table of contents.

The document does not “label conservative Christians extremists and potential terrorists”. Rather, it says things like:

Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.

and

Antigovernment conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons.

These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.

Note: This is the only — the one and only — use of the word “Christian” in the entire document, which focuses on militias and white supremacists. But what is “Christian Identity”?

The Christian Identity movement is a movement of many extremely conservative Christian churches and religious organizations, extreme right wing political groups and survival groups. Some are independent; others are loosely interconnected. According to Professor Michael Barkun, one of the leading experts in the Christian Identity movement, “This virulent racist and anti-Semitic theology, which is practiced by over 50,000 people in the United States alone, is prevalent among many right wing extremist groups and has been called the ‘glue’ of the racist right.”

The largest Christian Identity movement has traditionally been the Ku Klux Klan which was reorganized in 1915 by William Simmons, a Christian pastor. He had been inspired by the film The Birth of a Nation which portrayed the KKK as a champion of white civilization. The KKK slid into obscurity by the second World War, but was revitalized in the mid 1950′s as a reaction to enforced racial integration in the southern US.

So, does this mean that CADC believes all Christians are or should be aligning themselves with the Ku Klux Klan and other racist organizations? Does it mean Gary Cass of the CADC does, himself?

If not, I fail to see how Cass can refer to the report as “calling conservative Christians extremists and potential terrorists”. Unless he’s lying, that is.

2. President Obama’s appointment of radical anti-Christians like homosexual activist Kevin Jennings as the “safe school czar;” pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Seblius made Secretary of Human and Health Services, and Chai Feldblum, pro-homosexual and anti-religious liberty judge nominated for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I can find no evidence of Jennings being “anti-Christian”, but he was a gay rights activist (founding the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, which works to — gasp — make schools safe for non-heterosexuals, too) in years gone by. And Fox News did make false reports of crimes he’d supposedly committed, claiming for instance that Jennings had “covered up statutory rape” (proven to be false).

Kathleen Sebelius is pro-choice. Yep. Last time I checked, that wasn’t a “Christian/anti-Christian” issue. Banning abortion IS part of the Christian Agenda, however, and this defeat angers them.

A portion of Chai Feldblum’s bio at Georgetown University should answer any questions about the objection to her:

Chai R. Feldblum is a Professor of Law at Georgetown . . . Professor Feldblum has been a leading advocate and scholar in the areas of disability rights, health and welfare rights, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, and workplace issues . . . She has also helped draft and negotiate the Employment Nondiscrimination Act . . .

“Not supporting Christian Agenda” = “Anti-Christian Act”. ’nuff said.

And finally, we end our countdown with an act far more heinous than any Cabinet appointment, or arrest, or even double homicide. That’s right, I’m talking about making it illegal to incite violence against homosexuals.

1. The Federal Hate Crimes Bill that attacks religious liberty and freedom of speech. For the first time in our history ministers are vulnerable to investigation and prosecution for telling the truth about homosexuality.

False.

Ministers are quite safe if they tell the truth about homosexuality. If they instead say that homosexuals are all pedophiles eager to give congregants’ little boys AIDS, they’re not safe.

They can say what their imaginary friend’s book tells them about homosexuality. If they instead urge their congregants to go stone homosexuals with stones that they die, they’re not safe.

See the difference?

If you got this far, I figured you would.

That’s right, according to CADC, expecting Christians not to incite violence against people who don’t share their beliefs is an Anti-Christian Act, and one far worse than murder! Why? Simple.

Murders make martyrs, and martyrs further the Christian Agenda. It doesn’t matter if the murderer was insane . . . they’ll take any convenient martyr.

Telling people they can’t use a minority within society as a scapegoat for fundraising and vote-gathering and lynch-mob-rousing purposes slows down the Christian Agenda. After all, without the ability to spout lies about homosexuals, how will they raise hundreds of millions for their political candidates? By promoting the merits of their own ideas??

Update: We fully expect that 2010′s CADC list will include THIS horrible case of anti-Christian discrimination, in which a northwest Georgia couple was arrested for using a guitar string to tattoo religious symbols on their minor children, aged 10-17. Tattooing without a license is illegal in Georgia, and the couple has been charged with child abuse. PZ Myers comments:

Children are your responsibility, not your personal sheet of blank paper. They aren’t there for you to scribble on, crumple up, and throw away if you don’t like them. Isn’t it weird how the religious wackjobs can howl about how a fetus is a human being that must be granted the privilege of existence, but once it pops out, it reverts to being a possession, a thing that mommy and daddy can do with as they please?

Jeez, next thing you know they’ll be demanding the right to chop off the ends of the boys’ penises.

For once, I have nothing to add . . .

Related articles:

1. CFI Applauds High Court ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez
2. Texas educators still fighting over Christian candy – Principals not dismissed from lawsuit
3. Christian News Digest, Monday 2/9/09
4. Featured Video: Lia, Preteen and Pro-Life
5. Minnesota GOP’s would-be Governor: Anti-gay, anti-Semitic group “good people”

Mike Daniels is co-editor of Secular News Daily.

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